


Recovery Two

by Fisher



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:14:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fisher/pseuds/Fisher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just hours before the start of Recovery One, South receives a call from Command with her newest assignment and she is finally presented with the means to get what she's always wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recovery Two

South waited a good 20 minutes after The Meta left before she dared step out of the shadows she had used for cover.  She made her way over to the body it had left behind.  She knew eventually she would be ordered to deal with The Meta herself.  She was a Recovery Agent, after all.  However, unlike most agents whose job it was to clean up the mess after a Freelancer Agent had died, it was South’s job to deal with agents that had gone rogue, or otherwise presented a threat to the Project.  Yes, she would have to deal with The Meta, who posed a great threat to the Project, eventually, but until the time those orders came down, she was perfectly fine simply watching it and letting it do her dirty work for her.

She had spent the past several weeks gaining North’s trust again.  It hadn’t been very difficult.  He had wanted to believe in her and that had been easy enough to exploit.  Her original plan had been to simply shoot him in the back and take that goddamn annoying child of an A.I.  However, she found that to be easier said than done.  It infuriated her that when she finally had her chance, she couldn’t shoot him herself. Also, the more she thought about being stuck with Theta, the more irritated she became.  When she learned that The Meta was in the area, she seized the opportunity.  South was nothing if not opportunistic.

She looked down at the body at her feet.  She had expected to feel some kind of sadness now that her twin brother was dead, but instead she felt nothing at all.  Not really.  North had ceased to be her brother a long time ago. Now he was now simply a man in her brother’s armor, and she had no attachment to that.   She toed the body slightly and wondered if in the end North had realized that she had set him up.  She really couldn’t stand hearing him call for her, call for help, so she had switched off her com and watched from her hiding spot.  It had all been over in a matter of minutes.

She squatted down by the body and booted up the armor’s systems and had it run a user analysis.  Just as she expected, there were no vital signs.  The user was dead.  She put two fingers to the side of her helmet to activate the communications link.

“This is Recovery Two to Command.”

Her contact at Command answered almost instantly, as though she had been waiting this call.  “Go ahead, Recovery Two.”

“Mission complete,” South reported.  “Sending logs now.”

There was a pause as the logs were sent and received.  “Good work, Recovery Two.” There was another momentary pause before Command continued, “we have another job for you.”

Work was the last thing on South’s mind. “I was told after I completed this mission, I’d be given my own A.I.”

“You were supposed to recover Agent North Dakota’s A.I. unit.” Command responded simply.  “But, according to your log, you failed to do that.”

South practically growled into the link, “we had a deal.”

“I know all about your ‘deal’,” Command answered her as though her own patience was wearing thin.  “If you are successful with this next assignment, you’ll get what you want.”

“Really.”  South wasn’t convinced.  Project Freelancer was a dying entity.  Everything had gone to shit the day Carolina died.  No.  Really it had started before then, but that was the event that South could point to and say it had really started.  With The Meta now running around causing problems it was only a matter of time before the UNSC sat up and took notice.  The Director was making sure as many loose ends as possible were tied up before that happened.  That was what South was being used for – and she was being used - and she had no doubt that eventually she herself would be one of those loose ends that needed to be tied.  With any luck, she would be gone long before then.  There was just something she _had_ to get first.

“Look, do you want this or not?”

South sighed. “Yeah, whatever.  Go ahead.”

“Another Recovery Agent – Recovery One – has become a liability.”

“Recovery One,” South repeated.

“I’m sending you the mission details now,” Command said and a moment later the onboard computer in South’s armor was decrypting the files it had received.  South’s HUD loaded those details, including a dossier for Recovery One.  There was no indication as to how this agent had become a liability, but South forgot about that the moment she saw the agent’s name.

“Agent Washington?  Recovery One is Wash?”

“Yes-“

“I thought he was decommissioned.”

The hint of thin patience was back in Command’s voice when she answered.  “He was.  However, his experience with his A.I. unit made him something of an asset.”

Oh, South knew all about Wash’s “experience” with his A.I.  That experience – that breakdown – was the whole reason South had never gotten her own A.I.  An A.I she had worked very hard to get for reasons she could no longer remember.  It had been Wash’s fault that part of the Program had been shut down and the reason why South was doing what she was doing now.  The reason why she had agreed to turn on her own brother.

“Recovery Two?” Command cut into her thoughts.  “South.”

“I’m listening.” South answered finally, realizing that Command had been speaking to her while she’d been lost in her own thoughts.  She turned her attention back to the dossier, which included the psych evaluation that had been used to clear Wash for duty, a profile that predicted how he would act in certain situations and a mission log that detailed his last several assignments. 

“Is this going to be a problem?” Command asked carefully.  “You worked with Agent Washington once.”

South almost laughed right out loud, but bit it back before it could escape her mouth.  Yeah, she and Wash had worked together.  They’d been part of the same team, after all.  However, that didn’t mean they’d been friends.  Far from it, in fact.  Her lips pulled back into a smile when she saw that during his last assignment Wash had recovered Delta from York and that he had not yet returned the A.I. unit to Command.  This was the opportunity she had been biding her time for.

“No,” she answered.  “No problem at all.”

“As you can see, Recovery One is on his way to your location now,” Command went on.  “He will be set to rendezvous with you in a few hours.  As far as he knows you went AWOL with North.  We would prefer it if he didn’t find out you’re a recovery agent.”

“Understood.”

“Good luck, Recovery Two.”

When the link ended, South stood up.  She looked down at the purple armor at her feet.  She was finally getting what she wanted.  She didn’t mind that she had to kill for it.  She just wished she could remember why she had wanted it in the first place.


End file.
